THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 9th OF FEBRUARY 1979 AT YORK HOUSE, THE HOME OF THE INFORMANT ON LINKS ROAD, ST ANNES ON SEA. THE INFORMANT IS GEORGE FORRESTER SINGLETON, RETIRED SENIOR PARTNER IN THE FIRM OF G F SINGLETON AND COMPANY, ESTATE AGENTS, OF BLACKBURN. THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Now on this tape what I want to do is take an entirely different tack and go on to a new subject. As you know, at the moment I'm very interested in researching bobbin, mills in the Lake District. I have already done some work on bobbin mills in Manchester. Now the thing is that wherever you have a textile industry, there is an outlet for firms who are prepared to make wooden bobbins and by bobbins I mean things like pirns, weft packages, any sort of turned wooden material. And I do know from things you have said to me that you have come across these sort of things. Now, what I'd like you to do is tell me what you know about bobbin mills.
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R - Yes. Well now, when the cotton industry was developing from the single thread manufacture to machines making multiple threads then the need for bobbins on which the yarn is wound grew tremendously both in quantity and variety and size. Bobbins are made of hard wood and hard wood in to be found largely in the Lake District area. And also for turning purposes, they needed power, so they utilised the water wheels and there at the early stages you had ideal circumstances for making bobbins.
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Indeed, there exists now in Windermere one of the best known firms for making bobbin machinery in the world. The name might come to mind. Which is a unique local industry, and they make machinery, wood turning machinery for a great variety of purposes as well as for bobbins, and shuttles, and furniture. Oh, the name is Fell, W.A. Fell Ltd, they have a great reputation, and
(5 min)
deservedly so for their innate skills, which have been handed down. Well now, as the industries developed they needed to import woods to cope with the quantity therefore they could site their bobbin mills nearer to where the bobbins were required, and so bobbin mills were set up in Todmorden
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and Blackburn and Oldham, just to name a few which come off the spur of my tongue. Now the expansion was terrific. Instead of hundreds or thousands the requirements were millions and eventually there was some concentration into the hands of two or three large firms. The firm which established at Todmorden was known as Wilson Bros. and Co., and they eventually, at about the turn of the century bought a site at Garston near Liverpool so that they could utilise imported timber and therefore supply Manchester and Yorkshire and Lancashire etcetera. There were one or two firms in Blackburn but before them I should say in the old English timber industry, there were a few firms
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on the Pennine slopes where bobbin mills were established so that they could utilise the local water power. Now, later on of course, other materials were used but weren't as satisfactory as timber. But eventually processes were developed where the bobbins were not required, where yarn was put onto cones which are a self-supporting coil of yarn which has now become a popular form of intermediate delivery between one process and another. Now, that in a nutshell is the story.
(10 min)
That's it, yes. Well now, with your permission, I’ll pin you down a little bit. Todmorden, Wilson Bros. and Co. Can you tell me what you know about them?
R- Yes. They were a firm who again, on the Pennines side, probably started in a small way but they were enterprising people and they pioneered
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the huge development. As a result they went to Garston but also they trained several other people who eventually set up in competition. There were also several bobbin makers in Yorkshire but Wilson Bros. became the largest and for a period very successful. But like so many other firms, where there is a huge demand for which they had to acquire stocks, when the slump came, they were caught with holding these stocks, and the market went against them and eventually brought them down until $hey were taken over by a smaller firm because there was still a good connection left for what was available you see.
What was the name of the smaller firm, can you remember?
R- Bancroft Shuttles. And, incidentally, they took over another firm called Kirk and Co. Blackburn Ltd.
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Were they bobbin turners?
R- Yes, bobbins and shuttles. They very often went together, bobbins and shuttles because it was the same kind of block, different sizes but similar materials you see?
Yes, that's it yes. One of the interesting things that I found in Manchester was that in Manchester bobbin and skewer turners seem to have gone together.
R – Yes. Well I’ll tell you for why. The skewer was for the cops and it was used largely for doubling purposes. Then the twist cops or the cops from the mule spinning frame were put on to skewers in the creel of the doubling mill, of the doubling frame, and, and - oh dear me, the name’s
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escaping me. I can see the machines now, there were two kinds of doubling, there was the ring doubling frame, and this, after the style of a mule carriage, to and fro, the name escapes me.
All right. That’s all right.
R - But that's what the wood skewers were for. I think they were mostly cornel wood, but a very hard wood or boxwood.
Yes. Cornel of course is what a lot of the shuttles are made out of nowadays.
R- Cornel and Persimmon.
Yes. The dark shuttles, the dark coloured ...
R- Persimmon.
Are they Persimmon?
R- Yes.
Yes. I always thought they were Lignum Vitae but there you are.
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R - No, no. Lignum Vitae is a very hard wood, and far too heavy. Oh no, Lignum, Vitae is used where a durable wood is required for underwater purposes.
Yea, that’s it. Can you, you mentioned, when you mentioned Todmorden you mentioned some other towns in Lancashire. Obviously, one of the things we are interested in are locations, names and wherever possible the names of the mills. Can you happen to remember the name of the mill Wilson Bros. Had? You know, the name of the premises?
R - Not I don't.
No. That’s all right.
R- But there was also another firm at Preston and they were owned by a Belfast firm Irving and Sellars, the name comes back to me. But they specialised in bobbins for the spinning mills.
In other words, larger bobbins such as they… Well larger bobbins because I mean they did get on to very large ones didn’t they, for ring spinning and…
R- Yes, well, and for the intermediate frames, roving frames. That’s right, that's true.
Yes. Roving frames, that's it yes. Can you, can you cast your mind back, I realise this is very difficult but as I say, I’ll just put slight pressure in you. Can you cast your mind back for more names of bobbin mills in the, well any sort of area, Lancashire, anywhere? Names of firms. Or locations?
R - There was one called Forest, a firm called Forest, they had a place at Billington, near Whalley.
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Yes.
R- And then there was another place in Blackburn whose name I forget. Of course you see, most of these firms have been out 50 years, that's a long time. But I had dealings with the amalgamation and take over in the later times towards the end of the era and that was the only thing to do, to concentrate. You see it was a kind of rear guard action.
When you say that you were dealing with amalgamations and such as that, I take it that one of the first things that you would have to do in any proposed amalgamation would be to do a valuation.
R – That’s right.
Of the premises.
R- They wanted to know what was the market value of the property. Both land, buildings, water rights and machinery.
Yes. And so that presupposes the fact that you'll have a fairly good knowledge of the sort of machinery that was being used 50 years ago for making bobbins in Lancashire.
R- Yes I had at the time.
Yes. Could you tell me whether for instance, was most of the machinery, the actual lathes, were they iron frames or wooden frames?
(20 min)
R- Iron.
Iron. Did you over come across any that were wooden framed machines?
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R - Well there probably were a few where the beds, the lathe bed was perhaps a wooden frame, but in the hand tooling industry, some of the little old mills, but mostly those that survived had the cast iron frames and beds on top of which they had the head and the tail and the tools for turning.
Yes, and they’d be more form tools than hand tools. Yes.
R - Oh yes. They were highly specialised, and the machines were set with tools to perform a certain process, and then the batch of bobbins or shuttles going through would be returned to the same operatively who would put another tool on for another process until it was through. Later on, there were several multipurpose machines developed so as to reduce the number of operations.
Would most of the mills that you came into contact with, what would the motive power be?
R – Electricity, in the last, since the turn of the century.
Did you ever come across any with steam power?
R- I can’t just recall, but there must have been, there must have been before the development of electricity which was roughly round about 1900
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when it became commercially viable. Say from 1850 to 1900, in that 50 years there was a huge developments and they must have been driven by steam engines. But you see that's 80 years ago so I can’t just think of one now but there must have been... there must have been.
Yes. Well, as I say, I realise I’m putting pressure on you. Have you ever come across one where there was either still a water wheel running or you knew that there’d been a water wheel there?
R - Oh yes. I'm thinking of this one at Billington, it comes to my mind but it was only a small place you see? And incidentally to make do when the bobbins went off, they made handles for tools and for shovels and anything which they could, by which it was required for, utilisation of the hard wood you see?
That’s it, aye. Brush stales and such.
R - Brush stales, that's right. Well of course, mostly brush stales were of soft wood, except those for heavy work like Corporation road sweeping and they had a strong, they had a stronger wood.
That’s its yes. When you say that a lot of this machinery was driven by electric motors, are you thinking of individual electric motors on each machine or machines driven by overhead shafting powered by a large electric motor?
R- Oh yes. That was the first development and lasted a long time. Central motor, shafting and belting. Latterly, and I would think from 1930 onwards, there was a development of the individual drives where the motor was attached to the spindle you see? But it didn't apply all round
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because some of the machines, they didn’t require very much power to operate you see?
Yes, that’s a good point yes.
R- Oh no they didn’t.
Yes. That's a good point. When you were going to do a valuation of a bobbin mill, what arrangements did most of them have for drying timber? Because obviously, one of the principal things about turning bobbins, any sort of turned work is that the wood has got to be perfectly dry.
R- Oh yes. Well the old method of course was to stack the timber for air drying. Well, that’s a very slow process. But when they got on to mass production and imported timber they developed the oven-drying process you see, whereby the wood would be put in the drying chambers and kept for so long according to the size, until the moisture was taken out, extracted. That had the benefit of avoiding the finished bobbin taking a misshape, warping they call it, you know?
Yes. And of course another additional benefit of that would be that they wouldn’t have to have such large stocks of timber drying slowly.
R – That’s true, that's another reason.
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Yes. Which would make that process more economical even though it actually cost more for the actual drying. Yes.
R- That’s it. Yes.
To your knowledge, the drying chambers themselves, I do know that modern kiln-drying of wood in large quantity is done, not only in a chamber applying heat, but also under vacuum because it brings the moisture out of the wood quicker, can you ever remember coming across any arrangement such as that, whereby the air could be pumped out of the chamber while it was being heated?
R - I don’t recall.
No. Oh well, obviously if you can’t recall, that's it. So to all intents and purposes, would you may it was true that when the industry started to become more centralised and bigger volume production from one unit, that’d be just about all imported timber?
R- I would think so, yes.
I'm wondering what the effect would be on the coppice-woods you know, on the coppices that were used before. You know the farming of a stand of timber for coppice.
R - Yes. Well, you see the contrast between the old hand-work and machine-work was so great as to put the small timber out of commercial value. It took too long to cut and to handle and to store, so naturally, with economy in mind, suitable machinery for handling was adopted according to the timber imported you see? Large amounts from Africa and some from South America.
(30 min)
So it was more economical to take a large piece of timber and reduce it, possibly on a multiple band saw or something like that than bothering with small, odd-shaped pieces of timber out of a coppice which were all different.
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R- Oh yes. Oh certainly, yes. There was a certain amount of timber used for the smaller bobbin which not necessarily of the hard wood to which I refer but the
forests were searched for suitable timbers on the grounds of economy. Incidentally there were two other firms that I remember. Oh, there were three. There was one at Barnsley known an Wilson and Co. Barnsley Ltd I think. They had been a break away from the Todmorden, the Garston firm and then there was another firm in Bradford and another firm near Keighley.
They are still working at Steeton.
R – That’s it, Steeton.
Yes. I can't remember the name [Dixon’s] but they are still working at Steeton. Yes, bobbin manufacturers. How well did you know Manchester?
R - Fairly well.
I was doing some researches the other day down at Manchester into bobbin mills and I was going through Slater’s directories for 1820 to 1870 and one of the things which struck me, I came across quite a few references.
R - You mean 1920 and 1970.
No, 1820.
R - Slater?
Yes, the old Slaters directory.
R - Oh I beg your pardon, I'm on the wrong one.
Different Slater, but Slater’s directory for 1820 to 1870.
R- Right.
And it mentioned quite a number of bobbin mills, bobbin and skewer turners and things like this. And one of the things that struck me was the fact that they seemed to be concentrated in certain. Areas. Now I reasoned that as they were so early, 1820 some of them, 1828, 1830, one would think that they were water-powered. Now quite a few of them seem to be
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located in Salford on Great Clowes Street. Now I don’t know the area well enough without going down and having a look, but is that alongside the river that area?
R – Yes, it’s not far away but I don’t think, I don’t think they'd get water power from the Great Clowes Street area.
No. I’m wondering what the power was you see.
R – Well…
As I see it there are two alternatives, either they had their own small steam engines or they were running, one can well imagine the situation where a small firm would set up on the end of a large mill that was using a steam engine and buy power off them just by a shaft through the wall. I’ve come across instances of this being done with things like mortar pans and such.
R - Oh yes, yes, so have I, but I don’t recall any such cases in bobbin makers, they were independent. Well, I don’t know but I can't imagine any head of water in the river about Clowes Street, Great Clowes Street.
Yes, how interesting. There is also some mention that it in China Lane in Piccadilly and one can’t really imagine water-power there.
(35 min)
R – No, I think it must have been small steam engine.
Yes. Possibly, and sometimes happened I know, with the boiler fired off the shavings from the bobbins.
R - Oh yes. They utilised waste products that way for a period.
When you were going to do a valuation for somewhere like a bobbin mill, can you ever remember any cases where you went where it was obvious to you that the building had been used for something else before it was bobbin mill? Say a corn mill or something like that. Did these things, did anything like that ever strike you?
R- No. They were generally purpose built. If there was a stream in the country, well they were probably two or three stories with the water wheel just outside the end you know? And as a rule, they were purpose built. Simple, mostly rectangular buildings adapted according to the lye of the land, levels you know and that kind of thing, to take into account.
Yes. Was there any particular feature about a place that was being used as a bobbin mill that would distinguish it from say an ordinary engineer’s work shop or something like that? Anything that comes immediately to mind?
R - After the water power had served its purpose or had been superseded, the answer is no. No special requirement.
No. What I'm thinking about mainly is windows. You know, would there be more windows in a bobbin mill than say in an engineer's work shop? Was light any more important?
R - Oh yes. Definitely. But an engineering work shop, as a rule, was more spacious. A bobbin mill only required relatively narrow rooms you see with one or two lines of machinery for the flow of the material and supply of material and stacks. No, they are two different types of building. Now an engineering works wants space in which to move, not only to set up the larger machines, but space in which to move the items being manufactured you see?
That’s it, aye. That’s another interesting point. So for a bobbin mill it wasn’t really necessary to have large rooms, because the inherent in the nature of the business was the fact that the pieces they were working on were very small anyway.
R- That's right.
Yes. Yes, that's interesting as well. If somebody was going to do an amalgamation like that, this is not so much bobbin mills, I mean this applied to almost any firm. What were the sort of criteria
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that you applied when you went to judge the value of premises and machinery? I mean obviously you must have had a very wide knowledge of the market for machinery but what sort of process did you use to arrive at the value of say machinery in a bobbin mill? We’ll talk about a bobbin mill, but it could apply to any other sort of premises. You know, what sort of thought processes would you use, I realise it's a difficult question.
R - Well, speaking generally, the tools were simple, they were small. Once you have got a revolving shaft, which was, call it the lathe head, you could put anything to it and the beauty of the wood turning mills of any variety is that tools can be devised to cut various shapes, provided they were in the circular fashion you see? So that the machinery in the early stages wasn’t elaborate. It was the tooling and the skill in making these tools that came into prominence. Now, later on, with the adaptation of multi-production, then of course you had a larger machine and you wanted a little more room and it got more expensive. But what we had to do, to arrive at the market value, was to take the norm as being the latent machine, having regard to its cost and productive capacity. We scale it down according to age and condition and again capacity, because the old ones have not, normally speaking have not the same capacity. And so you gradually applied the skill rising from experience to what you had to apply your mind to, you see? To the particular questions in view
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and having regard to the market ability of the machines. That’s the general approach, you see as to in effect, what is the residual economic value you see. If it's a new machine, well it's the new cost. A machine 50 years old, and there are 50 year old head stocks in timber which can go on and on and on because you simply put new bearings to it and off you go again. Well the depreciations on those are relatively small so you built up a knowledge, and you apply it to the best of your belief to a particular object. And in a case of amalgamation well then you'd value each works on the same basis, so you get a common factor throughout you see.
That's it. So that really, it wouldn’t matter if it was an amalgamation, it's really the proportions that matter.
R- In the long run, exactly.
Yes. And so really it doesn't matter if the man that's doing it isn’t quite right in his assumptions about the values, as long as he does both of them.
R - Well I wouldn’t say that, because unless he has some knowledge…
Well yes.
R - You see? No, you might allow for variations but if one man does both then the variations compensate each other, that's the point.
Yes, understood.
R- But he must be, he shouldn’t undertake it unless he is familiar with the matter.
And how about the building Mr Singleton, when you were looking at the building what was the criteria there as to the value of a building?
R - Well, first of all, is it suitable for the continuation of the business, number one. If not, what’s the alternative use, and then you consider various trades having regard to the size of the building, location and condition. It’s a complicated business. But you see of course these things filter through your mind you see and you apply them, well I've used the expression that a valuer is like a reflector, he collects all the rays from the source and concentrates them on one particular point to get an answer.
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Yes. One thing that's often struck me, seeing industrial valuations, is that many a time, the actual physical condition of the building is of less importance than things like the potential for other trades and the suitability for its present use and obviously in this day and age, things like planning requirements and planning permissions and things like that.
(45 min)
R - Oh yes.
Would you say that was true? That in the final analysis, when you start to think about things like planning requirements and fitness for the present use that the condition of the building needn’t necessarily play a large part in the calculations?
R -Well the most important thing is legal, shall I call it legal approval? Town planning consent nowadays, that's the most important factor because if you are not permitted to use your building, then the value is virtually gone or limited to what they are allowed to be used for, put to, you see? Having said that, you do take the condition into consideration because a new man, a new firm coming in, they say “Well, we can utilise this space, we like the situation, but we shall have to spend so many thousand pounds on conditioning.” So they base their price, and we valuers have it in mind as to what it would cost to put the building into condition for the particular purpose in hand you see.
Yes. What would you say was the, I’m talking now about old textile premises in general - what would you say was the biggest fault common to all of them. I'm thinking about something in particular, but I’m just wondering whether you have come across the same thing when you go to look.
R- Well I’ll tell you. On single storey buildings in particular it's pillar distances. Pillar distances as well as height, but pillar distances are the most important single factor in the adaptation of a weaving shed to any other place..
Yes.
R - Right, but also in spinning, mule spinning mills, you have not only the fact of the pillar distances, but the floor loading capacity. If for mules, the weight being put on the beams between
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the pillars, right? The floor in between for the mule carriage and the operatives to move does not require the same weight. So mule spinning mills are not as adaptable for other purposes, they have their limitations.
Yes, because you don’t need the same floor loading capacity because obviously the weight of the frames is carried on the strongest part of the building between the pillars. Yes, I never thought about that.
R- That’s it.
Because really the only weight in between is the people walking on them and the weight of any material that was just stacked there.
R - And the movement of the mule carriage you see, yes.
Yes, that’s it, yes. Aye, very interesting.
R - Well of course these things grow with you, you see. You grow with them. I’m telling you now, in a couple of hours the results of a lifetime of experience you see?
Yes. You make me feel like Uriah Heep, very humble, very humble,
R - Oh no no.
Yes. Now that’s an interesting thing. One of the things that I was thinking about was that most of the weaving sheds that I’ve ever see, things can look quite presentable until you take the looms out and then the floors are absolutely terrible.
R – Yes. Well where there's stone flag floors, they get grooved with the clogs of previous generations. Clogs I say. And also where the loom feet have been placed, they had to be secured and mostly in the old days they were secured by bolts or lead, yes, lead was used. But unless they be secured the looms, the speed of them, they tended to move you see? This of course affected the cloth production and the movement of the shuttle and so it had to be fixed, had to be firm I mean.
That's it, yes. I know that was one of the things about Bancroft, the floor was in such terrible condition that it was one of the major factors in deciding how much the buildings are worth actually, because we did get an estimate for putting a four inch concrete raft down suitable for putting automatic looms on, and the lowest estimate was about a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
R- Now, John has been, my son, he says “It's fantastic. I don’t think they have spent any money for fifty years.”
Oh, at Bancroft?
R – Bancroft.
Oh they have not spent a ha’penny.
R- He said it was fantastic, incredible that a firm could have continued to exist you see. Fortunately, the firm or the person who has bought it, is not in the textile trade, you may know, but my recollection of what John told me was that he was taken up with this building and although he is not a textile man it's his intention to retain some of the features, more or less as a museum piece.
Yes. I’m going at have to stop the tape.
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